With the increasing cost of labor and ever escalating costs of materials it has become more and more imperative that many of the functions which used to be either done completely by hand or at least manually checked, be done as close to totally automatically as possible. One of the areas which has been under increasing pressure to keep costs at a realistic state has been the food processing area. In the food processing area itself one of the particular areas which can be approached and cost savings realised is in the area of food packaging.
Dividing attention to normal, convenience-packaging, both the quantities of the material packaged and the individual elements of the material package are of a small enough unit that minor errors are not particularly costly and further, the control is fairly simple. However, when dealing with bulk quantities or with individual units, to be packaged, which are of a relatively large size, a small error will be multiplied to be a large expense item. Thus, for bulk packaging it is extremely important that the packaging be done as rapidly as possible and as accurately as possible.
Heretofore, bulk items such as potatoes or other produce have been bulk packaged but the weight has had to be continually monitored since the total weight of the packages tends to vary dependent on the particular placement of the item within the package. Further, the jarring generated by inertial forces within the package tends to alter the scale, rendering the total packaged weight unreliable.
With the above known prior art problems in mind it is an object of the present invention to provide an automatic bulk packaging and weighing device wherein the correct amount of the particular product being weighed is automatically parcelled into the container once the container is stopped at the weigh station.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a weigh station for bulk packaging wherein the weighing is done electronically including a small time delay between the initial loading and the weighing and the bulk package supporting platform is so fabricated that the particular location of the product within the package does not appreciably affect the total weight factor.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a bulk packaging means wherein the weighing platform is supported by means of a flexible, cantilever suspension system of a predetermined flexure independent of the product placement within the container. The actual determining factor as to the proper weight is the contact between the suspension system and load cell indicating that the package had reached a predetermined and preset minimal weight without permitting substantial overage.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an integrated packaging system wherein the empty cartons are provided by means of a continually moving conveyor belt and the weigh station is constructed such that the carton is removed from the control of the conveyor belt just prior to filling and retained in a position out of control of the conveyor belt until a predetermined weight has been reached. The filled carton is returned to the control of the conveyor belt thus releasing the weight station for the next carton.
Still a further object of the present invention is to provide a novel method and means for packaging bulk articles wherein the packaging and weighing is done in a minimum amount of time and at a maximum accuracy and the weighing system does not respond to inertial forces while being extremely reliable.